Pandora Calls
by MidnightAria
Summary: Jake, all around good guy and ex-marine. Harry, all around good guy and a wizard. These two bright people meet in a world turned gray and hopeless. What will Pandora make of them?
1. Chapter 1

MA- I own nothing. No, really. My cats own everything, even me. ^.^

Pandora Calls

Chapter One: Is This Seat Taken?

Jake found himself flat on his back in another alleyway. Again. He was beginning to make a habit of this, but he just couldn't understand how people seemed to WANT to be smacked around. He had gotten so used to jumping in and saving people overseas in the wars, it must have become habit. He'd been trying to stop what had looked like the beginnings of a gang rape. The woman, a pretty and curvy blonde, had been crying to the man who had her wrist in a tight, bruising, grip, as the first of the other four men had been reaching for her clothes. Jake should have known, he knocked his head back on the cement below him a couple times, when the woman really wasn't fighting, wasn't really screaming and that empty hopeless look in her eyes when she had glared at Jake- demanding why he felt he had needed to knock out her boyfriend. He had been so startled and confused by her apparent masochistic tendencies he hadn't noticed one of the guy's friends coming up behind him and knocking him out of his chair with a metal pipe. The guys aim and muscle had been laughable so other than a few bruises there wasn't a lot of damage.

Jake thanked whatever beings out there, that the worst the rest of the guys did was give his useless lump of a body a few kicks on their way out. He had stayed sprawled, looking up at the small sliver of dirty gray sky, framed by the even dirtier gray buildings, crisscrossing power-lines and the harsh neon glow of the holo-signs found everywhere throughout the city. The alley's smell wasn't really too different from the rest of the city either; unwashed masses, fumes from vehicles and exhausts from the buildings, strong eye-watering perfumes and colognes, rotten food, alcohol, and other unnamed-able, unmentionable scents. The only reason Jake could find to actually move from his spot would be the pebble digging into his shoulder blade. Even that, though, really wasn't helping his turbulent thoughts. What had happened while he'd been overseas? Had the country gotten meaner since he'd been gone? Or had it always been that way and he'd just been too unobservant to notice? His brother Tom had always told him he never paid attention; that he often stepped in things he should have obviously noticed- both literal and figural. Or had losing his legs, the use of his legs- whatever, given him such a different outlook on life as to finally notice this shit.

Jake heaved a sigh, banging his head back on the ground again. Wow, he thought, the world is messed up. It's turned into survival of the fittest… and the fittest is nowhere near the best example of our species. They're like rats, or better yet cockroaches, disgusting and hard to kill.

Jake was pulled from his thoughts by a pair of lively green eyes, framed by a pale face and black hair. He stared for a bit, he'd never seen such green eyes, they were like emeralds, or those truly real plants those of the upper crust indulged in… or… something, Jake thought rather unintelligently. They blinked. He blinked.

"Well, at least you're alive. Need a hand up?" The green eyes asked, with a bit of an accent, it was hard to place- like the owner of those eyes had lived somewhere long ago, but had now lived in the USA long enough to lose most of the original accent. Jake gave a mental shake and sat up, getting a better look at Green Eyes. It was a guy, he looked to be a bit younger than Jake and had Jake been standing, he would have been a full head shorter. He was slender and had muscle, but it was deceptive, it was lean and mostly covered by the dark slacks, un-tucked, button up long-sleeved emerald shirt and he had a messenger bag slung across his chest. His face was delicately pointed, thick black bangs framed his face while the rest of his hair was pulled into a long tail at the nape of his neck. He cocked his head to one side and the bangs shifted a bit, revealing a faint lightning bolt shaped scar.

"I suppose that might make getting up a bit of an issue." He motioned toward the wheelchair tipped on its side next to the building's wall where it been thrown early in the fight.

Jake grimaced, preparing to heave himself over to his mode of transport.

"I got it." The guy walked over and instead of being an ass like most would have been and either damaging the chair- or Jake- further or setting it even further out of reach, the guy righted the chair and wheeled it next to Jake.

Jake put an unbelieving hand on the seat, as if expecting the chair to vanish and people to pop out yelling "gotcha". It was solid. The green eyed guy looked amused and turned to leave. Jake cleared his throat, making the other man stop and look at him expectantly.

"Um, thanks. You, uh… you really didn't have to do that." It was the other's turn to look stunned. Finally he smiled and shook his head.

"Really it was no problem. I'd like to believe I'm essentially a nice guy, even if the rest of the world isn't so nice… especially if the rest of the world isn't so nice." Jake nodded and extended his hand.

"Jake Sully, fellow nice guy." The green-eyed man grinned, reaching and shaking the offered hand.

"Harry Potter, glad to see the world hasn't gone completely to shite yet." Jake laughed.

"If you'd hang out a sec I'll walk… err, roll you to wherever you're going." That prompted a laugh.

Jake decided Harry needed to laugh more often. It was a nice bright light in a dull gray world.

End Chapter One

MA- Yup, I have jumped on the Avatar bandwagon. Come on though, who doesn't love giant blue cat-people? Hopefully this is different enough from the others to be interesting.

This starts before the beginning of the movie, yes, even the bar scene and also before Tom dies. I see Jake as essentially a decent guy, so getting thrown out of a bar on his ass for trying to stand up for someone seems to be a normal thing for him. The world also seems much harsher and I know people don't like to hear it, but people- especially in crowds- are very reluctant to do the decent thing. Unless something dramatic happens I really see it just getting worse in the future. So I really can see a future were a girl expects to have to service her boyfriend's friends, is used to getting smacked around and treated as nothing better than dirt (actually that happens now, but people are loathe to admit it). Very pessimistic of me I know, but well, quite a number of people suck. Even I do on many an occasion.

On a lighter note, this isn't gonna be a dark fic, not really. I'll have another chappy up soon =)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

One Year Later-

Jake rolled down the sidewalk, people avoiding him while ignoring him in a way he was far too used to. He stopped at a plain windowless brick-facade building and grinned as the bell above the door jingled as he entered. The shop, simply named 'Antiques', was Harry's and had been one of the most interesting places Jake had even been in. In a world where high tech was everywhere and simple things, like a small jingling bell over a true wooden door (real wood was hard to come by anymore, it was expensive and rarely turned into doors anymore) to announce the presence of customers was lost in this day and age of computers and automation, even in the slums. Harry's store was on the border of where the slums turned into mid-level housing. It was an odd location considering his most frequent customers were the eccentric uber-rich, those who wanted to show off wealth by filling their skyscraper mansions with rare, no-longer made, and most importantly, expensive items.

When Jake had asked, Harry had told him the store had been there for quite a long time. Jake was inclined to believe, considering the architecture and brick façade were several hundred years out of date. Jakes queries about building inspectors and tycoons trying to tear down an age old building to replace it with multi-story cheap housing had led to a long, rather unbelievable story of Harry's past. Jake had gone home that night in an uncomfortable stupor. His boyfriend of three months(at that point) was a hundreds of years old wizard. He had seen proof in a silver carved bowl full of gleaming silvery white liquid that had pulled him into memories of a world that seemed impossible, and in several examples Harry had performed for him. It had been a hard couple of weeks to come to term with the revelations, but Jake had been so miserable without the cheerful green-eyed man that he had decided it didn't matter. Magic existed, Harry had it- was the only one who had it anymore apparently- and Harry was one of the kindest, gentle and loving people he knew. The age difference wigged him out a bit, but Harry had never aged- he had mentioned that he had gradually slowed and stopped aging toward his late twenties. He wasn't sure why, but had a few theories- so Jake wasn't reminded about ages too often, at least visually.

The tinkling bell had alerted Harry and a muffled "Be with you in a moment" sounded from the recesses of the deceptively large store. Jake grinned securing the colorfully wrapped package in his lap more comfortably against his unfeeling legs, as he used his free hand to roll himself to the antique wood counter at the front of the store. Harry rounded a large set of junk-filled shelves, smiling brightly when he spotted Jake.

"Jake you came!" He came up to the chair-bound man and gave him a peck on the lips. Jake managed to pull his boyfriend into a bit more of an intimate and lingering kiss before letting go with a smirk at the slightly dazed green eyes.

"Of course I came, it's your birthday- even if you refuse to celebrate it- and I have a gift for you." He handed over the package. Harry snorted at the blue wrapping with neon colored ducks all over it.

"You really shouldn't have Jake, you know…" Jake interrupted

"Yesyes… you don't celebrate anymore, I just said that! Doesn't matter. It's yours." He shoved the package at Harry, forcing him to either accept it or drop it. A bit of a fumble and it was in Harry hands, the petit man rolled his eyes at Jake's triumphant grin. He plopped down in Jake's now empty lap.

"Hey, watch that bony ass of yours!" Jake teased.

"Why, when you always seem to be doing that for me?" Harry retorted, wiggling said ass on unresponsive legs. Jake could only thank whatever deity out there that had left certain, important, male, parts of his anatomy still responsive, even if his legs were now useless. While Harry and he had to be a bit creative in certain recreations due to his limited mobility, their sex life hadn't been too compromised.

Jake wrapped his arms around his lover, stilling the wiggling.

"Stop teasing and open the damn gift." He groaned into Harry's neck. He felt the vibrations in Harry's throat as he chuckled.

"Fine fine… let's see what you got me." Jake raised his head enough to rest his chin on Harry's shoulder. The wrapping, being a plastic based paper (seeing as wood pulp paper had become scarce and expensive), didn't tear, so unwrapping the gift was, literally, unwrapping it. Jake had remembered Harry commenting on the wrapping paper the first time he had brought his boyfriend a gift. Something about how he missed being able to tear into the paper, making a huge mess and how wrapping paper now-a-days just left him so unfulfilled. Jake hadn't quite understood, but nodded and smiled anyways.

Harry finished unwrapping the gift, uncovering a book. It wasn't anything spectacular, just a plain red leather bound book, the edges of the pages were uneven and a bit crumbled with age. The title on the cover might have been filled in with ink or gilding at one point, but was now scratched and worn to unread-ability.

Jake watched Harry's eyes widen as he reverently stroked the cover. Jake smiled. He had found Harry's weakness early on. While Harry had quite a few memories in everything he sold, he had the hardest time parting from his books- not the plastic based, or holo-screened copies, but the wood-pulp based, or the even older and rarer animal skin based books. The ones written in ancient and/or long forgotten languages, Jake had yet to find a book in a language Harry couldn't speak or read.

Jake nudged Harry gently.

"Open it. The title page is mostly intact and I wanna know what it is." Jake knew he sounded like a whiney child just then, but Harry didn't seem to mind, obligingly opening the cracking cover. Harry chuckled a bit at the title.

"La Belle et la Bête" Harry read. "It's in French."

"You've read it before." Jake couldn't help but be a bit disappointed.

"Yes, but it is a great story. Good moral and everything." He closed the book and looked up at Jake.

"Oh?" Jake rested his forehead against Harry's

"umhmm." Harry seemed to melt against Jake's chest. "All about not judging someone based on outward appearance and first impressions."

Jake barked a laugh, "heh, wow that's almost disturbingly ironic."

Harry nodded, chuckling before stealing a kiss. "Ironic or not, thank you Jake."

"While I was hoping you hadn't read it before, I'm glad you like it." Harry hugged Jake before standing.

"Just let me close up and we can head to my house to finish celebrating… since you seem to be insisting on this." Jake grinned, replying.

"I could just be trying to get you to cook for me more." Harry laughed as he disappeared back behind the shelves.

Jake waited, shifting in his chair a bit as Harry finished sorting bits and bobs onto shelves. Jake had tried helping him out once, before admitting defeat after knocking over a shelf full of glass figurines. While Harry had claimed it was no big deal and had repaired everything with a wave of a hand, Jake had still felt terrible, being useless even to those he cared for.

"Tom called me the other day." Jake spoke up, breaking a silence that had been becoming rather uncomfortable to him.

"Oh? What did the jackass want now?" Jake grinned, Harry had never liked Tom. Despite being twins Tom had always been the smart one, the one that had gotten all the breaks. Their parents and peers had all thought Tom to be the greatest thing since holo-vids. Jake had gone into the military for many reasons, one being to get out from his older-by-mere-minutes brother's shadow. To have his boyfriend think Tom was full of it gave Jake a happy feeling that had him grinning like a loon. Not to say he didn't love his brother, he did, he would give his life for his twin if he had to, but he didn't like how people would compare them. "The good twin, the bad twin", "the smart one, the dumb one", "the useful one, the useless lump". The loss of his legs had made Jake quite bitter in regards to his twin's successes.

When Jake had brought Harry over to the brother's monthly dinner together to introduce the two he had feared his brother's charms would make Harry realize he was wasting his life with Jake. He was, however, shocked when not only did Harry not leave him, Harry- calm, patient Harry- had gotten into a yelling match with Tom, when his brother had made some rather uniformed and completely idiotic (at least to Harry) opinions about some historical events based in Harry's magical past. Tom hadn't known Harry's past and so had been quite shocked by Harry's anger. Talking to his brother later that week, Jake had explained Harry's past to Tom. Tom had been a bit embarrassed, but had held by what he had said. Harry was not impressed and the two remained at odds, managing to be civil to each other when forced into the others company for Jake's sake.

"Actually it's news you might actually enjoy hearing." Jake smiled in amusement as Harry popped his head around the end of the shelves.

"Oh? Did he finally figure out the difference between his head and his ass?" Jake chuckled, shaking his head.

"No. But apparently his thesis went through. They picked him for that Pandora project." Harry's eyebrow rose.

"The Avatar project? Really?" Jake shrugged.

"That's what he told me."

"Huh… so he and his stupidity will be over five years away from us?" Jake nodded.

"Good." Harry nodded to himself and disappeared again. Jake couldn't help but laugh.


End file.
